Toulmin, Stephen. The Uses of Argument. Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
A. Overview of the Toulmin Model
Stephen Toulmin (1922-2009) was a British philosopher and logician. He first proposed his model of argumentation in 1958 in a book called The Uses of Argument. An updated edition was published in 2003.
Toulmin created this model of argumentation as a way to understand arguments that can be used in real world situations. He was attempting to get away from the classical model of arguments based around syllogisms. In logic, a syllogism is a three-statement argument. The third statement, the conclusion", is based on two prior, related statements. For example:
Toulmin was unsatisfied with the absolute nature of syllogisms, and felt that they did not reflect the real-world, where arguments were often more convoluted and required more than three lines. He took the basic three parts of a syllogism, and added three supporting components.
The three basic parts of a syllogism relate directly to the parts of an argument called the Claim, Fact, and Warrant. In the example above, the claim is that Socrates was fallible. The fact, what we would call evidence, is that Socrates was a man. And the warrant connects the two with the idea that all men are fallible (more on warrants below). However, real world arguments are more complicated:
In casual arguments, the warrant is often implied. For example:
Claim: You should wash fruit you buy at the grocery store before you eat it.
Fact: Pesticides and bacteria have been found on produce at most grocery stores.
The warrant (that pesticides and bacteria can make you sick) can be unstated.
Good arguments take into account exceptions. In life, there are very few absolutes. We usually need Qualifiers to let people know when a claim is not always true.
It is important to note that Toulmin was not interested in arguments as they apply to scientific claims specifically. His book (and the article which inspired it), dealt mostly with legal arguments. It wasn't until the 1970's that people started applying the model to general communication theory. Even the updated version of The Uses of Argument (2003) does not address argumentation in the sciences. Nevertheless, the model is useful in describing how people make scientific claims and support them with evidence, warrants, and qualifiers. Let's take a look at the parts of the Toulmin Model.
B. Parts of the Toulmin Model
Primary Components
The first three parts of Toulmin's model are the primary components. They come from the syllogistic model discussed above. The primary components include Claim, Fact (Evidence), and Warrant.
Claim
The claim is the assertion that is being made, which must be established as true. It is what the authors hope to convince the audience to agree with or believe.
Fact (Evidence)
The fact is the information that is used to support and explain the claim. Toulmin also used the terms Data and Grounds. Modern applications of the model use the term Evidence. The evidence explains why claim is valid.
Warrant
Warrant is the necessary information that connects your evidence to your claim. Warrants are often left unsaid, however it is often necessary to make the warrant explicit, especially when dealing with beliefs that not everyone may share, or which may be unfamiliar with the audience. Using the previous example:
Claim: You should wash fruit you buy at the grocery store before you eat it.
Fact: Pesticides and bacteria have been found on produce at most grocery stores.
Warrant: Pesticides and bacteria can make you sick.
If someone doesn't know that bacteria can make you sick, or doesn't believe that pesticides are bad for you, this warrant must be made explicit in order to make the argument compelling.
In most arguments, the warrant -- and the accompanying backing (see below) -- are where the bulk of the researched information would come in. The warrant relies on existing knowledge, which needs to be presented as factual. This is where most of the citations will be found, as the argument requires that the warrant connect the evidence presented to the claim.
Secondary Components
The final three parts of Toulmin's model are the secondary components. They supplement and support the primary components and are not present in all arguments. They include Backing, Rebuttal, and Qualifier.
Backing
As the evidence supports the claim, the backing supports the warrant. The backing is what tells the audience that the warrant is rational. In the case of the produce example, the backing would include information on the health effects of pesticides as well as the risks involved in ingesting bacteria from produce. Note that a warrant may essentially be a claim itself.
Rebuttal
Rebuttals are potential objections to the claim. As any debater knows, it is often helpful to demonstrate that you have considered oppositions to your own assertion, which shows that you are aware of the limitations and nuance in your position. Rebuttals make the claim more complete. Claim: You should wash fruit you buy at the grocery store before you eat it,unless you are going to peel it first.
This rebuttal concedes that not all fruit needs to be washed before consumption.
Qualifier
Qualifiers allow you to add specificity to your claim, making it more stable and less susceptible to rebuttals. Most of the time, qualifiers limit the claim using words such as "mostly", "may", often", "some", and the like. Some people refer to these as "weasel words". Rarely, qualifiers strengthen a claim with words like "always" or "never". Qualifiers often take the rebuttal into account, by acknowledging the limitations that the rebuttal makes explicit. Claim: You should wash most fruit you buy at the grocery store before you eat it.
The Toulmin Model is often represented using a diagram similar to this. As you can see above, the Warrant connects the Evidence to the Claim. It is in parentheses to demonstrate that it is often left as an unstated assumption.
Here's how Toulmin diagrammed the model in his book:
Adapted from Toulmin, S. (1969). The uses or argument. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. (pg. 105).
C. Adapting the Toulmin Model for the Evidence Game
Claim
As the Evidence Game deals specifically with scientific arguments, the claims within the game all relate to science. We have categorized the claims based on the four major themes in science education:
Life Science
Earth and Space Science
Physical Science
Engineering, Technology, and the Application of Science
Evidence
Toulmin used the term fact rather than evidence. However, in science fact refers to "a type of observable measurable, or verifiable information that is unchanging and generally accepted by the scientific community." Because claims in science can also be supported by information that is not classified as fact -- information such as data gathered through new observation or experimentation; accepted theories, laws, and principles; and expert opinions -- we have chosen to use the term evidence. This is a rather common substitution in modern applications of the model, reflecting the general change in the usage of the words fact and data.
Other than the terminology, there is a major difference between the Toulmin Model and its application in scientific argumentation. Most of Toulmin's work was in real-world arguments. His claims are mostly supported by a single piece of evidence. "Harry was born in Bermuda (evidence), therefore Harry is a British subject (claim)." However, most scientific arguments are not supported by just a single piece of evidence. Rather, a successful claim depends on a large amount of supporting evidence. In the evidence game, a single claim will have many associated evidence statement, which the students are tasked with ranking or classifying.
Warrant and Backing
The concepts of claims and evidence are not foreign to most middle school students, many of whom would be able to give general descriptions of the terms. However, the idea of warrants is almost certainly a new one, and few middle school students have even a passing familiarity with the term -- outside of its tangential use in police dramas. Because of this, we have chosen to combine the Warrant and Backing into a single component that we call Chain of Reasoning. This terminology makes the purpose of the warrant -- connecting the evidence to the claim -- more explicit. It also reinforces reasoning and critical thinking as the overall task of the activity.
It is in the chain of reasoning that another major difference emerges between the Toulmin Model and the game. Because a claim is supported by a single evidence statement in Toulmin's model, there is a warrant associated with each piece of evidence. In order to simplify the concept, we have chosen to use a more holistic application in our chain of reasoning. Rather than having a warrant and backing for each evidence statement, students are asked to describe generally what kinds of warrants are present in the chain of reasoning. Is the evidence supported mostly by 1) the authority of experts, 2) the application of scientific theory, or 3) the use of logical arguments such as analogies or cause & effect.
Because of this change in the model, most of the support for a claim has shifted from the warrant to the evidence. Whereas in Toulmin's model it is the warrant that requires backing, in our application it is the evidence that must be supported by valid, reliable, and objective research. The students are still asked to identify the chain of reasoning connecting evidence to the claim, and they must evaluate the strength or weakness of the chain.
Rebuttal
Like warrants, in the original model the rebuttal was tied to a specific piece of evidence. And as with warrants/backing becoming chain of reasoning, we have made the rebuttal a more holistic experience. In an academic paper, scientific researchers are expected to offer their own thoughts about limitations to their claim as well as asking new questions for further research. However, often when people are exposed to scientific claims in the media these rebuttals are left out. The audience is often left with additional questions or concerns that were not present in the claim. Therefore, the rebuttal stage is presented separate from the claim and evidence, rather than an integral part of the claim.
Additionally, Toulmin's model was predicated on the idea that the evidence was true and correct (remember, he called it "fact"). In scientific arguments, very often the evidence is invalid, unreliable, or biased. Therefore in our model we have split rebuttal into two related ideas. In the game, rebuttal specifically refers to an assertion that the evidence is incorrect and does not support the claim. We have added the term counterargument to refer to the assertion that the evidence may be correct, but that it is being applied incorrectly and does not support the given claim.
Within the game, players will be given sample rebuttals and counterarguments and asked if they are significant enough to cause the player to reconsider the claim. It is a combination of the strength of the evidence, the chain of reasoning, and the rebuttals/counterarguments that players will use to decide if they will accept the claim, reject the claim, or withhold judgment for a later time.
Qualifier
In Toulmin's Model, a qualifier is mostly based on the rebuttal to the claim. Scientists are very reluctant to use absolutes such as "always" or "never", and almost all scientific claims use terms such as "sometimes", "may", "could", or "possibly". It is important for students to pick up on these words.
(David Wright, StudioLab, Furman University.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-YPPQztuOY.Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)
A. Overview of the Toulmin Model
Stephen Toulmin (1922-2009) was a British philosopher and logician. He first proposed his model of argumentation in 1958 in a book called The Uses of Argument. An updated edition was published in 2003.Toulmin created this model of argumentation as a way to understand arguments that can be used in real world situations. He was attempting to get away from the classical model of arguments based around syllogisms. In logic, a syllogism is a three-statement argument. The third statement, the conclusion", is based on two prior, related statements. For example:
Although there are many different types of syllogisms, the basic three-line structure is common to them all.
Toulmin was unsatisfied with the absolute nature of syllogisms, and felt that they did not reflect the real-world, where arguments were often more convoluted and required more than three lines. He took the basic three parts of a syllogism, and added three supporting components.
The three basic parts of a syllogism relate directly to the parts of an argument called the Claim, Fact, and Warrant. In the example above, the claim is that Socrates was fallible. The fact, what we would call evidence, is that Socrates was a man. And the warrant connects the two with the idea that all men are fallible (more on warrants below). However, real world arguments are more complicated:
It is important to note that Toulmin was not interested in arguments as they apply to scientific claims specifically. His book (and the article which inspired it), dealt mostly with legal arguments. It wasn't until the 1970's that people started applying the model to general communication theory. Even the updated version of The Uses of Argument (2003) does not address argumentation in the sciences. Nevertheless, the model is useful in describing how people make scientific claims and support them with evidence, warrants, and qualifiers. Let's take a look at the parts of the Toulmin Model.
B. Parts of the Toulmin Model
Primary Components
The first three parts of Toulmin's model are the primary components. They come from the syllogistic model discussed above. The primary components include Claim, Fact (Evidence), and Warrant.Claim
The claim is the assertion that is being made, which must be established as true. It is what the authors hope to convince the audience to agree with or believe.Fact (Evidence)
The fact is the information that is used to support and explain the claim. Toulmin also used the terms Data and Grounds. Modern applications of the model use the term Evidence. The evidence explains why claim is valid.Warrant
Warrant is the necessary information that connects your evidence to your claim. Warrants are often left unsaid, however it is often necessary to make the warrant explicit, especially when dealing with beliefs that not everyone may share, or which may be unfamiliar with the audience. Using the previous example:If someone doesn't know that bacteria can make you sick, or doesn't believe that pesticides are bad for you, this warrant must be made explicit in order to make the argument compelling.
In most arguments, the warrant -- and the accompanying backing (see below) -- are where the bulk of the researched information would come in. The warrant relies on existing knowledge, which needs to be presented as factual. This is where most of the citations will be found, as the argument requires that the warrant connect the evidence presented to the claim.
Secondary Components
The final three parts of Toulmin's model are the secondary components. They supplement and support the primary components and are not present in all arguments. They include Backing, Rebuttal, and Qualifier.Backing
As the evidence supports the claim, the backing supports the warrant. The backing is what tells the audience that the warrant is rational. In the case of the produce example, the backing would include information on the health effects of pesticides as well as the risks involved in ingesting bacteria from produce. Note that a warrant may essentially be a claim itself.Rebuttal
Rebuttals are potential objections to the claim. As any debater knows, it is often helpful to demonstrate that you have considered oppositions to your own assertion, which shows that you are aware of the limitations and nuance in your position. Rebuttals make the claim more complete.Claim: You should wash fruit you buy at the grocery store before you eat it,unless you are going to peel it first.
This rebuttal concedes that not all fruit needs to be washed before consumption.
Qualifier
Qualifiers allow you to add specificity to your claim, making it more stable and less susceptible to rebuttals. Most of the time, qualifiers limit the claim using words such as "mostly", "may", often", "some", and the like. Some people refer to these as "weasel words". Rarely, qualifiers strengthen a claim with words like "always" or "never". Qualifiers often take the rebuttal into account, by acknowledging the limitations that the rebuttal makes explicit.Claim: You should wash most fruit you buy at the grocery store before you eat it.
The Toulmin Model is often represented using a diagram similar to this. As you can see above, the Warrant connects the Evidence to the Claim. It is in parentheses to demonstrate that it is often left as an unstated assumption.
Here's how Toulmin diagrammed the model in his book:
Adapted from Toulmin, S. (1969). The uses or argument. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. (pg. 105).
C. Adapting the Toulmin Model for the Evidence Game
Claim
As the Evidence Game deals specifically with scientific arguments, the claims within the game all relate to science. We have categorized the claims based on the four major themes in science education:Evidence
Toulmin used the term fact rather than evidence. However, in science fact refers to "a type of observable measurable, or verifiable information that is unchanging and generally accepted by the scientific community." Because claims in science can also be supported by information that is not classified as fact -- information such as data gathered through new observation or experimentation; accepted theories, laws, and principles; and expert opinions -- we have chosen to use the term evidence. This is a rather common substitution in modern applications of the model, reflecting the general change in the usage of the words fact and data.Other than the terminology, there is a major difference between the Toulmin Model and its application in scientific argumentation. Most of Toulmin's work was in real-world arguments. His claims are mostly supported by a single piece of evidence. "Harry was born in Bermuda (evidence), therefore Harry is a British subject (claim)." However, most scientific arguments are not supported by just a single piece of evidence. Rather, a successful claim depends on a large amount of supporting evidence. In the evidence game, a single claim will have many associated evidence statement, which the students are tasked with ranking or classifying.
Warrant and Backing
The concepts of claims and evidence are not foreign to most middle school students, many of whom would be able to give general descriptions of the terms. However, the idea of warrants is almost certainly a new one, and few middle school students have even a passing familiarity with the term -- outside of its tangential use in police dramas. Because of this, we have chosen to combine the Warrant and Backing into a single component that we call Chain of Reasoning. This terminology makes the purpose of the warrant -- connecting the evidence to the claim -- more explicit. It also reinforces reasoning and critical thinking as the overall task of the activity.It is in the chain of reasoning that another major difference emerges between the Toulmin Model and the game. Because a claim is supported by a single evidence statement in Toulmin's model, there is a warrant associated with each piece of evidence. In order to simplify the concept, we have chosen to use a more holistic application in our chain of reasoning. Rather than having a warrant and backing for each evidence statement, students are asked to describe generally what kinds of warrants are present in the chain of reasoning. Is the evidence supported mostly by 1) the authority of experts, 2) the application of scientific theory, or 3) the use of logical arguments such as analogies or cause & effect.
Because of this change in the model, most of the support for a claim has shifted from the warrant to the evidence. Whereas in Toulmin's model it is the warrant that requires backing, in our application it is the evidence that must be supported by valid, reliable, and objective research. The students are still asked to identify the chain of reasoning connecting evidence to the claim, and they must evaluate the strength or weakness of the chain.
Rebuttal
Like warrants, in the original model the rebuttal was tied to a specific piece of evidence. And as with warrants/backing becoming chain of reasoning, we have made the rebuttal a more holistic experience. In an academic paper, scientific researchers are expected to offer their own thoughts about limitations to their claim as well as asking new questions for further research. However, often when people are exposed to scientific claims in the media these rebuttals are left out. The audience is often left with additional questions or concerns that were not present in the claim. Therefore, the rebuttal stage is presented separate from the claim and evidence, rather than an integral part of the claim.Additionally, Toulmin's model was predicated on the idea that the evidence was true and correct (remember, he called it "fact"). In scientific arguments, very often the evidence is invalid, unreliable, or biased. Therefore in our model we have split rebuttal into two related ideas. In the game, rebuttal specifically refers to an assertion that the evidence is incorrect and does not support the claim. We have added the term counterargument to refer to the assertion that the evidence may be correct, but that it is being applied incorrectly and does not support the given claim.
Within the game, players will be given sample rebuttals and counterarguments and asked if they are significant enough to cause the player to reconsider the claim. It is a combination of the strength of the evidence, the chain of reasoning, and the rebuttals/counterarguments that players will use to decide if they will accept the claim, reject the claim, or withhold judgment for a later time.
Qualifier
In Toulmin's Model, a qualifier is mostly based on the rebuttal to the claim. Scientists are very reluctant to use absolutes such as "always" or "never", and almost all scientific claims use terms such as "sometimes", "may", "could", or "possibly". It is important for students to pick up on these words.